Entries continue for Ken’s Komedy Kontest (for details click here or scroll down to yesterday’s post). Some pretty good ones. Can you beat them? For more incentive, here is just a sample from the AfterMASH script YOU COULD WIN!!! Dated Judy 24, 1984, written by Ken Levine & David Isaacs, complete with hard-to-find red cover. The episode is called “Trials”. Stateside Klinger is on trial for busting out of jail or something.
INT COURTROOM – DAY
Potter is on the stand. The Prosecuting Attorney stands before him. He holds a piece of paper for reference.
PROSECUTOR
Colonel Potter, you were the defendant’s company commander in Korea. Is that right?
POTTER
And never a finer soldier served under me.
PROSECUTOR
When did he first start wearing dresses?
KLINGER’S LAWYER (standing)
Objection, Your Honor. We are trying Mr. Klinger on his current problems… Not his past ones.
JUDGE (to Potter)
He wore dresses?
POTTER
Not all the time, Your Honor.
JUDGE
Objection overruled. Mr. Miller, I want to get to know this fellow.
PROSECUTOR
Colonel Potter, this habit of wearing women’s clothing, you didn’t find it odd, or disturbing?
POTTER
Well, at first I was a bit taken aback… especially the baby-dolls with the poodle slippers… but after some of the other things I saw in Korea, I was think’ about sportin’ a pinafore myself.
ANGLE ON MILDRED (Potter’s wife) and SOON-LEE (Klinger’s wife)
MILDRED
All those dresses I gave away to the church when I could have been helping our boys overseas.
SOON—LEE
It was an ugly war in so many ways.
PROSECUTOR
According to his service records, during his tour of duty, Mr. Klinger applied to you for a Section eight – i.e., a mental discharge – fifty-seven times. Why was one never granted?
KLINGER’S LAWYER (turning to Klinger)
Fifty-seven times?
KLINGER
A hundred and four, counting Colonel Blake. I loved that man.
POTTER
The boy wasn’t crazy.
PROSECUTOR
No? Then what was trying to do?
POTTER
He was just afraid. Besides, I wasn’t about to lose one of my best, most responsible corpsmen.
PROSECUTOR
He once ate a jeep.
KLINGER (jumping up)
I object! That jeep was Army property. You can’t try me for that!
JUDGE
Sit him down.
PROSECUTOR (reading further)
…Picked up by M.P.’s in the Inchon River with a rubber raft that he claimed was going to take him across the Pacific to San Francisco.
POTTER
A lesser man would have stolen that raft. He signed for it.
PROSECUTOR
He tried to set himself on fire… walked around with an imaginary camel… wet his bed… played with dolls… sent pictures of himself dressed as Rita Hayworth to seven Generals…
KLINGER’S LAWYER (to Klinger)
You didn’t?!
MULCAHY (leaning in)
He still gets a single rose from General Meachum every Flag Day.
PROSECUTOR (reading on)
…Posed as Moses… a nun... the Statue of Liberty… tried to fly out of Korea on a hang glider made of bamboo poles and canvas?
KLINGER
They never let you forget.
PROSECUTOR
Colonel Potter, didn’t you do anything to curb this unbelievable behavior?
POTTER
Yes, I did
A moment of silence.
PORSECUTOR
Well?
POTTER
I promoted him.
An underrated and clearly under-appreciated classic to be sure. It'll probably be re-discovered by some future generation much smarter and sophisticated than our current one.
ReplyDeleteOr not. It's really difficult gaging the taste of the Tee-Vee generation.
I was half waiting for Klinger's blue dress, the one with suspicious DNA stains, to be entered as evidence. In his defense, they could point out how Klinger raised everyone's morale by his record-setting pole sitting stunt. Wait, that sounds kinky, too…
ReplyDeleteI wanted a pony.
ReplyDeleteWith a joke like that Anonymous... if that is your real name, you'll be wanting for a long while.
ReplyDeleteI was trawling YouTube today looking for anything AfterMASH related and found a few clips of various opening titles for shows in the 80's - and I wanted to know, did anybody notice the similarity between the opening credits for AfterMASH and Cheers?
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a hidden comedy genius in AfterMASH that wasn't realised... I guess without the threat of Korean soldiers storming the 4077 the laughs just didn't come.
AfterM*A*S*H was an interesting idea. Seems well written. Why did it not work?
ReplyDeleteI was trawling Youtube too. You think it's only our army that went to hell in a handbasket?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/3114/85/
AfterMASH - the Joey of its time.
ReplyDeleteReally it was. Take some characters from a mega-hit and put them in a spin-off after the mega-hit ends. Only problem was that they took the least interesting characters. I hate to say it but a Cheers spin-off featuring Cliff and Norm would never have done as well as Fraser.
Yes, yes...but this scene...Kee-rist, is funny!
ReplyDelete"That war was ugly in so many ways..."
Far be it from me to criticize the work of people like Ken Levine, David Isaacs and Larry Gelbart, but AFTERMASH failed for me in the opening scene where Potter came home, and we SAW his Missouri house and Mildred ... and they looked nowhere near as good as the mental images of them I'd developed after years of Potter at the 4077th describing home. No matter how talented the writing on AFTERMASH was -- and the lengthy script quote proves it WAS talented -- they were trying to illustrate things best left to the viewer's imaginations.
ReplyDeleteIn the same vein, I'm grateful we never saw Vera Peterson on CHEERS.
With respect to seeing Mildred: Didn't they switch to a different actress for AfterMASH's abbreviated second season in fall 1984?
ReplyDeleteAfterMASH did recast the role of Mildred Potter for the second season. Barbara Townsend originated the role. For the second year, Mildred was played by Anne Pitoniak, who went on to guest star in "Cheers", as Woody's elderly "love interest" in the episode where he was dressed up as Mark Twain.
ReplyDeleteAm rediscovering it now! Or should I say discovering it as, although I was aware of afterMASH back in 1983-85, I never did catch an episode then (I was a college student at that time and not really in to TV). I realize it's been many years now since most of the comments on this blog appeared, but I want to add that, seeing this show far from the shadow of MASH, it's actually quite a good, gentle production that deserves much better than it's mostly trashed reputation (at least it is through the first 13 episodes of Season One).
ReplyDelete